What JFK learned -- and taught -- about leadership

By Warren Bennis

Updated 9:39 AM ET, Thu November 21, 2013

1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev speaks to the East German Communist Party Congress on January 14, 1963. His public statements in Berlin indicated the USSR did not immediately plan a full-scale revival of its efforts to force the Western occupation powers out of the former German capital. 1963 was a seminal year, not only because of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, but advances in technology, entertainment and evolving political relationships also kept the world on its toes.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Crowds gather for the first viewing of the Boeing 727 jet airliner in Seattle in December 1962. The aircraft's first flight would take place on February 9, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The American poet Sylvia Plath is shown in 1961. She took her own life on February 11, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Patsy Cline performs at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry in this undated photo. The country music star and three others were killed on March 5, 1963, in the crash of a Piper Comanche near Camden, Tennessee.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – A line of handcuffed prisoners, the last convicts held at Alcatraz prison, walk through a cell block as they are transferred to other prisons from Alcatraz Island on San Francisco Bay, California, on March 21, 1963. Alcatraz, known as "The Rock," was a federal penitentiary for 29 years and a prison for more than a century.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The Beatles released their first album, "Please Please Me," in the United Kingdom on March 22, 1963. A 7-inch copy of the single, seen here, was signed on both sides by the Fab Four and sold in 2011 for more than £9,000.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – British film director Alfred Hitchcock poses with a seagull and a raven in a promotional still for his film "The Birds." The film was released on March 28, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The long-running soap opera "General Hospital" debuts on ABC television on April 1, 1963. It is cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Josip Broz Tito is proclaimed president for life in the constitution of the newly named Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on April 7, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – David Bruce, the American ambassador to Britain, takes leave of Sir Winston Churchill at Hyde Park Gate, London, on April 10, 1963, after presenting the former British prime minister with a proclamation naming him the first honorary citizen of the United States, a title given to him the day before on April 9, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – On April 10, 1963, 129 men lost their lives when the nuclear-powered submarine USS Thresher sank during deep-dive testing off Cape Cod. The sub is seen here during its launch in 1960. The sinking is the deadliest submarine disaster in U.S. history and delivered a blow to national pride during the Cold War, becoming the impetus for safety improvements.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers became the first WWWF Champion on April 29, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Sean Connery and Ursula Andress appear in a scene from the film "James Bond: Dr. No." The film premiered in the United States on May 8,1963, as the first James Bond film.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The late Pope John XXIII's body is borne across St. Peter's Square on June 4, 1963, to St. Peter's Basilica from the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace. He died the day before from a malignant stomach tumor.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The former British War Minister John Profumo returns to London after 14 days of absence on June 18, 1963. He resigned as British state secretary for war on June 5, after admitting he had lied in denying any "impropriety" with 21-year-old Christine Keeler. Profumo simultaneously resigned his seat in the House of Commons.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – President John F. Kennedy broadcast a historic civil rights address on June 11, 1963, in which he promised a Civil Rights Bill, and asked for "the kind of equality of treatment that we would want for ourselves."

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, burned himself to death on a Saigon street June 11, 1963, to protest alleged persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton appear in a publicity still for the film "Cleopatra," which premiered on June 12, 1963. The historical drama, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starred Taylor as Cleopatra, and Burton as Mark Antony.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The June 28, 1963, LIFE cover of the child and widow of murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers at his funeral. Evers was assassinated in his home in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 12, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, returns to Earth on June 19, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – American President John F. Kennedy speaks to a massive crowd in Berlin on June 26, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Detectives inspecting the Royal Mail train from which more than £2.5 million was stolen. The Great Train Robbery took place in Buckinghamshire on August 8,1963, when the train from Glasgow to London was halted by a gang.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gives his "I Have a Dream" speech to a crowd on the National Mall in Washington during the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom, also known as the Freedom March, on August 28, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – United States representative Charles Stelle, left, and his Soviet counterpart, Seymon Tsarapkin, meet on June 20, 1963, in Geneva, to sign the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Establishment of a Direct Communications Line, an agreement to set up a hot line between the two superpowers. The "red phone" between Washington and Moscow was declared operational August 30, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Walter Cronkite sits behind the news desk on the set of the "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite," New York in August 1963. Cronkite became the anchor of American network television's first nightly half-hour news program on September 2, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – A coffin is loaded into a hearse at a funeral for victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The Birmingham Church Bombing, also known as "Bloody Sunday," took place on September 15, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The Lamborghini 350GTV with the body by Franco Scaglione is launched at the Lamborghini Factory, Sant'Agata, Italy, in October 1963. Among the onlookers, with white hair and light-colored jacket, is Piero Taruffi, winner of the last Mille Miglia in 1957.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – On November 2, 1963, the American-aided leader of South Vietnam's anti-communist, Roman Catholic regime, President Ngo Dinh Diem was arrested and assassinated.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The first push-button telephone was introduced on February 28, 1963. It was made available to AT&T customers on November 18, 1963. The phone has extension buttons at the bottom for office use.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, ride in an open-top limousine just minutes before Kennedy was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – The first episode of the BBC television series "Doctor Who" was broadcast in the United Kingdom on November 23, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – Pierre Mazeaud, Gerard Gery, and Philippe Laffon watch as a new island, Surtsey, is formed from volcanic eruptions off the coast of Iceland on December 2, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – CBS used instant replay for the first time during the Army-Navy game from Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia on December 7, 1963.

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1963: From "General Hospital," to the death of a pope34 photos

In the year 1963 – On December 20, 1963, the wall that separated the city of Berlin for 2½ years was opened for the first time at Christmas as the result of an agreement between the two mayors.

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Story highlights

Warren Bennis: JFK had a lot to prove to people when he was elected

The President who dealt with disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion learned a lesson, he says

Bennis: In Cuban missile crisis, JFK created a culture of candor in his inner circle

He says few presidents or chief executive officers have followed in his path

I vividly recall those 13 days in the fall of 1962, watching President John F. Kennedy on our black and white television in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was a professor at MIT focusing on the emerging field of leadership studies, and the Cuban Missile Crisis was about leadership writ large for the world to witness.

Fifty years after the Kennedy assassination, there is conversation everywhere about JFK's unrealized potential. Amid the wave of sentimental reflection this year, there has been much focus on the mythical elements of Camelot or too many details about that tragic day in Dallas, and not enough on the real-world challenges of the JFK presidency.

I believe Kennedy's legacy as a leader during the immensely difficult times of the early 1960s has been underestimated -- today, his imprint on the world political scene is powerful and far-reaching.

Warren Bennis

From the outset of his presidency, Kennedy had a great deal to prove to the country and to his hometown of Boston. There was a saying that the 617 area code, which included Boston and Cambridge, was the most opinionated enclave in the country, which I believe to be accurate. Many of my colleagues and friends at MIT and Harvard were skeptical of Kennedy. There was a sentiment that perhaps he did not have the gravitas to be president, that he was too young, too inexperienced, too dependent upon his powerful family.

I met John Kennedy in 1959 in Hyannis Port during the early stages of his presidential campaign, and would later serve on a Federal Aviation Administration task force that he created. I was initially impressed with him -- he was engaging and moved easily from the daily demands of campaign responsibilities to the larger issues before him in the presidential race.

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Still, after he was inaugurated in January 1961, we could not have predicted how the presidency would unfold. For me, and for many others, the defining moment of his administration remains the Cuban Missile Crisis. Watching Kennedy and his team play one of the highest stakes poker games that the world had witnessed was at once exhilarating and frightening. His mastery of diplomacy and politics succeeded in getting the Russians to withdraw nuclear missiles from Cuba.

This was a very different Kennedy from the uncertain president who failed miserably in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The difference? JFK had learned from his mistakes and the groupthink mentality of the Bay of Pigs. His management of the Cuban Crisis became a legendary example of a leader drawing the best from multiple advisers and making his decisions only after weighing each very different contribution.

Kennedy learned that in order to succeed, he must create a culture of candor among his inner circle, that he needed the confidence to hear their truths, and his team in turn the courage and freedom to speak those truths. This remains today a lesson that far too few presidents -- or CEOs -- since Kennedy have embraced.

The successful outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis would not have been possible had Kennedy not recruited some of the sharpest minds of his era, those David Halberstam would later famously describe as the best and the brightest. Kennedy intentionally made government service attractive, to ambitious, intelligent achievers through his diverse cabinet and state department appointments.

Much like Thomas Jefferson, Kennedy believed in the value of great ideas and people, surrounding himself with the smartest people in any room.

But perhaps Kennedy's greatest quality as a leader was his ability to inspire -- to reach the American people on an emotional and personal level.

Like FDR, Kennedy transcended a patrician background to touch the hearts of everyday Americans. His inaugural speech set the tone for his presidency, and when he implored an optimistic audience to do for their country, they listened and responded. They believed in him as he launched an aggressive space exploration program, they volunteered as he created a new global volunteer program called the Peace Corps, they followed the every move of his beautiful wife and children.

Almost 50 years after that horrific day in Dallas, Caroline Kennedy -- the only living member of JFK's Camelot -- stood in front of a Senate committee and was confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to Japan. She captured the enduring leadership legacy of her father as she pledged that she was committed to "public service, a more just America and a more peaceful world."